vulpes

I don't know if you're just being contrary for the sake of discussion or if I'm just not explaining well. In my idealized utopian world, there would be no financial perspective because the only place you would find money in any of its various forms would be in a museum.

makeinu

So don't measure it in dollars, measure it in man hours. It really doesn't matter what the units are. I could destroy all the rulers in the world, but I'd still have a 1.5" tire.

You asked "If 'defense' were unnecessary, what would you vote to devote several trillion dollars worth of resources to?". My answer was that I would devote the resources to the widescale democratic negotiations that would have to take place instead and I asked you to estimate how much resources these negotiations would require. Use whatever units you like. I just thought dollars would be a convenient unit since we're comparing it to the resources used for "defense" (which you cited in dollars).

I don't feel like I'm being contrary and I don't feel like you're giving poor explainations. I feel like you're skirting the question of how much resources the operation of the ideal utopian democracy would require and how it compares with the resources required for the operation of the capitalist system. Every time I ask you just point to how vast the resources required for the operation of the capitalist system are. However, you haven't given any reason to believe that the resources required for the operation of the ideal utopian democracy aren't equally vast or worse.

I'm inclined to think that the overhead of the ideal utopian democracy would be greater than that of the capitalist system. Of course, that's not necessarily a bad thing. If mankind has the extra resources then why not use them to build a more pleasant society? In my opinion, one of the flaws of capitalism is that, although it's extremely productive, it never stops to enjoy the produce. However, you seem convinced that your ideal utopian democracy is not only more pleasant, but also more efficient (due to a lower overhead). I'm asking you why you think the latter is true. I'm not being contrarian. I just want to understand how you came to this conclusion.

vulpes

Okay, fair enough. Maybe my problem is that I don't understand what you mean by "overhead" as it relates to a stateless, money-less socioeconomic system administrated from the community level, or maybe to me it just seems obvious. Rather than a collection of huge top-down hierarchical power structures each composed of millions of full-time workers plus support personnel, and all the material resources that this represents, that are in competition with each other to amass wealth, we would have small part-time community committees making decisions on the community level. In the event, and only in the event, of community level decisions that require a more general level of cooperation, that is, beyond the community, would a single delegate be elected to represent the community in a more general administrative body. So all these millions of workers would be free to engage in productive activities that benefit the community.

TimJ

Why speculate on something you know nothing about? Not to take you personally to task, I'm just fed up in general with most discussions about anything being one guy's thought experiments against another's. I mean really, what's your point? Why are you even arguing? The hunter/gatherer lifestyle is long dead.

bhtooefr

Well, theoretically, once this utopian government is in place, computers could run the government. It'd become a simple algorithm to run this utopian society.

But, I think there's enough variation in people for it to not work. And, as I said before, it takes a HELL of a lot of overhead to put it in place. Last time someone tried to put a new government in place on the ENTIRE WORLD, they failed miserably. (I won't say who, because I'd Godwin the thread.)

CommuterRun

Not entirely.

Some remote tribes still do a certain amount of subsistence hunting. For instance, the Inuit, right here in North America, still do whaling and sealing.

In addition to, and much the same as, me being car-lite, in this house we are also grocery store-lite. Years ago me going fishing began being refered to as me going to "Papa's Grocery Store." Now that term refers to any time I'm going in the woods, to the river or on the bay. In fact it has gotten to the point where if I come home with an empty cooler, the wife looks at me a little sideways. Like, "Where did you really go?"

But like I said, this only makes me grocery store-lite. In order to completely replace the grocery store and us live only on subsistence hunting and fishing, I would have to quit my job. Hunting and fishing would take up more than the 40 hours/week or more than I currently put in at work. Which is why I look a little askance at suggestions that hunter/gatherer societies have/had more leisure time than is currently enjoyed by most people.

However, to feed the entire world's population subsistence hunting/gathering would not be possible nor desirable. Everything would be wiped out in short order, leading to massive famine. Current farming and livestock production methods, which provide maximum yield for known technologies, is the only way to feed the maximum number of people, and even that does not and cannot reach eveybody.

vulpes

But there would be no 'government' at all, at least in the sense we understand government today; no top down hierarchical government at least, just a distributed administrative system based on community. And the example you are alluding to for putting a new government in place was a case of a someone or someones attempting to force their way on the rest of the world. For this Utopia to come about, everyone, or nearly everyone, would have understand what it is, want it, and work individually and communally to bring it into existence.

bhtooefr

However, how are you going to maintain this system WITHOUT a government?

One dissenter can bring the whole thing down.

The only other option is to wipe out the world's population, and start over.

Ekdog

My, what a rude and irksome fellow you are! Are you so unaccustomed to people not taking everything you say as gospel that you throw a tantrum every time one of your inane statements is challenged? Are you going to hold your breath if you do not get your way?

vulpes

Didn't you even read the whole post? "For this Utopia to come about, everyone, or nearly everyone, would have understand what it is, want it, and work individually and communally to bring it into existence." And how could one dissenter bring down something with that much bottom up stability?

makeinu

And what makes it so obvious that small part-time committees would be enough for community level decisions? Perhaps, without the daily/hourly feedback provided by the money system, there would be so many decisions intimately affecting so many members of the local community that large full-time committees would be needed? Also, what makes it so obvious that decisions requiring a more general level of cooperation would be a rare occurrence and not a frequent one? Take for example, the disagreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Sure you might say that such disagreements are rare, but how long would it take to met out? If such "rare" disagreements only happened on average once every 50 years, but they took 100 years of negotiation to met out then they wouldn't be rare enough to be handled by only one delegate from each community. It would be physically impossible. And even in cases when it would be physically possible, what makes you think a single delegate would be sufficient? As it is, the delegates in the conflict between Israel and Palestine seem to be failing to represent the interests and concerns of all their constituents (as evidenced by the unlawful actions of extremist groups, who obviously never would have agreed to the resolutions decided by their delegates).

I mean, to me it intuitively seems that war is the easy way out. It is easier to kill your enemies than to negotiate a compromise. That means, in practical terms, that all the man power and all the resources used in a war would be less than all the man power and all the resources used in a negotiation. Of course, I have no evidence that this is true, only my gut feeling, but if it is true then it would contradict the notion that small part-time committees would be enough to successfully resolve the disagreements which could lead to war. I am asking you, do you have any reasoning to support your belief that the resources required to adequately run these committees would be less than the resources currently used by the capitalist war machine, or is it just your gut feeling against mine? Because my gut feeling tells me it would require more resources; To me, it seems obvious that successful negotiation by committee would ultimately require millions of full-time workers plus support personnel, even more than the amount required by the capitalist system. I think that small part-time committees would quickly be overwhelmed with too many decisions, leaving things either unresolved or only partly resolved, and forcing society to either expand these committees or resort to more primitive means.

But the same could be said of any system. Like I mentioned before, if the world were in unanimous agreement about any system then there would never be any problems. If everyone, or nearly everyone, understood what capitalism is, wanted capitalism, and worked individually and communally to bring capitalism into existence, then all the vices of capitalism would be nonexistent. For example, there would be no theft, because, before stealing, a thief would say to himself, "Stealing is not capitalism. Capitalism says I should pay for it and I want capitalism. Therefore, I will not steal." However, the problem is that not nearly everyone wants capitalism and, likewise, not nearly everyone would want your Utopia either. If nearly everyone wanted either one then either one would be a utopia. Capitalism would be a utopia if nearly everyone wanted it.

vulpes

It appears to me that you are so deeply trapped in the mindset and thinking of the capitalist system that you are entirely incapable of even imagining anything different.

bhtooefr

I did, and that part stuck out at me. One dissenter, especially if that dissenter won't abide by the rules of the system, and it can't take root properly - the system is thrown off balance, and you get the Soviet Union all over again. Once the system is in operation, if you've got a dissenter, you need a police force to control that dissenter... which creates a class disparity.

vulpes

Sorry, I don't get it. It has nothing to do with what the Soviet Union was. That was just a form of state capitalism that has absolutely nothing to do with what I am discribing. One dissenter does not have any possibility of throwing off center a system that is formed out the agreement of the masses.

makeinu

What?! That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. You're the one that's having trouble with your imagination. I'm asking you to imagine whether or not small part-time committees would actually be able to handle the quantity and complexity of the problems they would be faced with, but the only thing you've had to say about it so far is that you think it's obvious that they would be able to handle it.

Well it's not obvious. An active imagination can see underneath the surface and propose many different reasons. Reasons for and reasons against. Calling something obvious means that you couldn't think of any reasons at all, which indicates a lack of imagination. Use your imagination and think of reasons why they would be able to handle it and why they wouldn't be able to handle it. Then tell me which conclusion is more compelling.

Why are you being so evasive? I asked you a very simple question about the ideas you are proposing: How would the resources needed to operate your proposed system compare with the resources needed to operate the capitalist system? Answering this question is very simple: You estimate the resources needed to operate the capitalist system (which you've done), you estimate the resources needed to operate the socialist system (which you haven't done...you've declared what you'd like them to be, but you haven't estimated them based on the potential needs of the utopian society), then you compare the two. Why can't you just do this?

vulpes

I've already explained at length why I think the resources required to operate this system would be magnitudes less than that required for capitalism. And you just don't seem to get it, or don't want to. I'm not being evasive at all. If you accept the basic primise, that I have repeated more than once, that for such a system to come into existence in the first place a vast majority of the global poulation would have to understand what it entails, want it, and work to bring it into existence, you would not be so focused on the need for negotiation ("To me, it seems obvious that successful negotiation by committee would ultimately require millions of full-time workers plus support personnel, even more than the amount required by the capitalist system."). And I find your statement that, "It is easier to kill your enemies than to negotiate a compromise. That means, in practical terms, that all the man power and all the resources used in a war would be less than all the man power and all the resources used in a negotiation." patently rediculous within the context of what I have already said.

Overhead is defined as the cost of doing business. It is subtracted from gross revenues to calculate profit. The system I am describing is not a profit based system so the concept of overhead is not even relevant. Profit is the excess value of labor that serves only to enrich the owners of the means of production and distribution. It is pouched by individuals for their own advantage, part of which they use as capital for the production of more profit, and part as private riches or means for luxurious living, which is sheer waste. It can, in fact, be looked on as a sort of bonfire in which rich men burn up the product of the labor they have fleeced from the workers beyond what they can use. The elimination of profit from the system of production and distribution and the elimination of private ownership of the means of production and distribution eliminates that waste and redirects the wealth produced to the benefit of the entire community rather than the advantage of a privileged few. This frees up a tremendous amount of resources that are currently wasted; resources that can be used to solve the problems that face humanity, many of which have been caused by the relentless pursuit of profit in the first place. I hope this helps you understand that even if this new system requires as much or more resources to operate, there will be far more resources available with the elimination of capitalist waste.

makeinu

The vast majority of the population agreeing on the nature of the economic/political system is not the same as the vast majority of the population agreeing on everything. Don't you agree that these are different things? Therefore, methods of negotiation would still be necessary.

Moreover, the conditions required to bring such a system into existence (understanding, desire, and action) are not necessarily the same as the conditions required for continued existence. Once the system is in place it could still continue to exist even if the global population fails to completely understand, desire, and work for the system. Understanding, desiring, and working towards the system only at it's inception is a less stringent requirement than understanding, desiring, and working towards the system at it's inception and forever after. Therefore, it is more likely that these conditions would be met only for a brief time at the system's inception (the less stringent case) and that mankind would continue to also have political disagreements thereafter (as has been the case for all of history).

You see, one of the things about capitalism that makes it work is that even if you deviate slightly from the ideal it still works. It's robust. Deviation from ideal scenarios are inevitable. Therefore, any practical system must be similarly robust.

I believe that a socialist democratic system, similar to what you've described, can be robust and practical. However, only if mechanisms are in place to negotiate through all kinds of disagreements. I believe that such mechanisms would require tremendous resources. Fortunately, capitalism has multiplied our ability to leverage resources to such an extent that mankind may actually have the tremendous resources required to make such mechanisms of negotiation a reality.

But what you're talking about is something else. The entire premise of your proposal is that, first, the nature of mankind must change and that deviation from the ideal would be nonexistent. You're presupposing that all disagreement would magically cease to exist. The realization of a global socialist democracy is far fetched enough as it is, but you might as well be talking about aliens.

That's not how I would define overhead. I would define overhead as the resources consumed by an operation below which the operation produces no results. In other words, the minimum amount of resources required before obtaining results (for example, if even the smallest amount of resources produces a result then there is no minimum and, thus, no overhead).

You know, if you're going to be proposing ideas which the world has never before seen, then you'll need to be flexible and generalize your definitions. Saying that the concept of overhead isn't relevant only limits you. You're much better off extending and generalizing the concept of overhead. Take, for example, computer screens. Computer screens aren't actually screens at all, yet we call them screens because of their similarities to the usage of screens with video projectors. If you like, you can stubbornly insist that a computer screen isn't a screen (and, thus, the concept of a screen is irrelevant and inapplicable to computers), but it is much more useful to observe the similarities between the computer screen and the video projector screen and extend the definition of a screen to include a computer screen.

But that's not important, I expressed my question in many different ways so that this kind of misunderstanding wouldn't serve as a distraction. Don't think about it in terms of a generalized overhead (generalized outside the context of business), think about it in terms of resources. Would the total resources consumed by the socialist democracy be less than or more than the total resources consumed by our pseudo-capitalist system?

No. Don't you see what you just did here? You keep doing it. You talked about how much resources the capitalist system uses (including waste). Then you mention the fact that if the capitalist system didn't exist that these resources would be available. Then you conclude that by eliminating the capitalist system these resources could be applied towards the problems of humanity. Your conclusion is a non sequitur. There would only be a surplus of resources available to apply towards the problems of humanity if the new system didn't require these same resources.

No. Another non sequitur. If the resources required by the new system are greater than or equal to the resources required by the capitalist system plus the capitalist waste then there would be no additional resources available. All you've demonstrated is that you can eliminate the waste, but you haven't shown that there would not be a corresponding increase in the actual resources required by the new system. If the difference in resources required by the new system over the old system is far greater than the amount of waste in the old system then there would not be far more resources available.

Once again, you haven't actually made any attempt whatsoever to estimate the resources that would be required by the new system. You estimate the resources required by the old system, observe they are tremendous, and conclude that switching systems would save resources. It doesn't work like that. No matter how tremendous the resource usage of the old system is, you'd only save resources if the resource usage of the new system isn't equally tremendous, but you haven't even tried to estimate the resource usage of the new system at all! It could be more tremendous, equally tremendous, or less tremendous. You wouldn't know because you haven't estimated it.

acroy

I think a lot of the debate stems from different opinions on the basic nature of mankind. there seem to be 2 main camps:

1) each person is basically a selfish, uncaring prick out for his own good. thus, for any government or economic system to work, there has to be rule of law, a monetary system of some kind, a balance of power within governemnt (i.e. our own 3 branches and both state and federal govt's set up intentionally as a power babalnce), etc etc.

2) each person is essentially good at heart and has the good of society as a whole in mind. An Altruistic man. Thus, a very socialist (small "s", label it what you want, socialist, anarchist, true democracy, whatever) society can and optimally, will, exist.

History (at least the last few thousand years) have shown that #1 can work well if set up properly. i.e. the persian empire, the roman empire, the current system in the US. none of these are/were very close to the ideal. Both persian and roman empires destroyed by selfish emperors, the US slowly degrading into a beurocracy and hamstrung by poorly-educated, apathetic populace.

I kow less about historical attempts at #2, tho it seems recent attempts at it have always been suberted by a few pricks from camp #1 who twist it to their own benefit.

how 'bout it?

TimJ

Yep. I'm already a shade of purple.

Rude and irksome... no, fed up. I don't like these sort of internet conversations where people pick arguments about things they have zero knowledge about, and they go around and around because there's never any end to "what ifs". There's a word for it: bulls**t. I avoid talking bulls**t if I can so rather than say anything and then have to sit through a round of some more "what ifs" I just decided to be a jerk.

Again I ask you, why start up an argument about something you don't know anything about? Do you think your uninformed thoughts on the subject are just as substantive as any other argument? I don't get it.

You want to know the deal? I can't explain to you in enough detail so you'll understand why your question wasn't worth engaging. Hunting/gathering is how humans have lived throughout most of their existence, and generally it seems like life expectancy was probably something like 40 or 50 years old. After farming took hold, and up until maybe just a few hundred years ago, life expectency was even less because farming allows for more people in closer proximity, more people living closer to animals, etc., and there has always been far more sickness and disease among settled groups of people than hunter/gatherers. Also, malnutrition has always been higher among settled people until fairly recently. There's a lot of things we suffer from that hunter/gatherers would have never suffered from, for instance cavities. Cavities are basically a result of processed food. You see a lot of worn teeth when you dig up old bones, but you don't see any cavities because there were no processed grains and no processed sugars.

All in all people probably enjoyed far fewer maladies than modern people, and most certainly far fewer than settled people from say... 6,000bc to maybe 300 years ago? Most of the health problems modern societies deal with are a result of our lifestyle and ancient hunter/gatherers would have never encountered them. Their diet on average was probably quite healthy and diverse and they got tons of exercise. So speculating that they probably had less lesiure time because they didn't have modern healthcare to extend their lives long enough to retire is like saying they probably weren't as happy because they didn't get to watch movies. It doesn't make any sense.

Also- you're not thinking of the term "work" correctly. A hunter/gatherer only has about an hour or two worth of things a day that they HAVE to do in order to enjoy their lifestyle. That doesn't mean they "work" for 2 hours while we "work" for 8. No. Cooking, cleaning, making our beds, driving (or biking) to work or anywhere we need to go, buying groceries, buying clothes, going to the post office, paying bills... everything you do in a day that you have to do is work, not just your job. A hunter/gatherer does about an hour or two (on average, sometimes that means spending two full days hunting and then a whole week just hanging out) and that's it. That includes preparing food, shelter, etc.

I didn't respond to your speculation because it wasn't worth it. And responding to it would just encourage you to argue some more about something you don't know anything about, but proabably feel really comfrtable bulls**ting on for pages and pages. Hey, if I'm wrong, sorry, but that's pretty much how the internet works and I've decided to opt-out of the usual "you have to respect everything anyone says" rule of thumb because I don't think it's useful to engage in "what one guy thinks up" vs. reality or "what one guy thinks up" vs. "what another guy thinks up" type of arguments. They're pointless and only serve to reinforce the mistaken idea that opinion is as important as fact.

makeinu

On the contrary, how would you have acquired your knowledge if someone didn't take the time to argue the point to you? And how can you be sure your knowledge is true if you didn't argue back?

May I ask what it is, in your opinion, that distinguishes your point of view on the subject from those you claim have zero knowledge (a rather extreme characterization, don't you think?).

Ekdog

"Rude and irksome... no, fed up. I don't like these sort [sic] of internet conversations..."

Have you considered refraining from participating in them? I am sure it must be trying for you to have to put up with so many feeble-minded types. I mean, really, to propose that modern medicine has benefitted mankind... Such folly! I do not, for the life of me, know what could have got into me.


"I avoid talking bulls**t..." You could have fooled me. The first two paragraphs (that is as far as I read) of your latest post seem to contain quite a considerable amount of that odoriferous substance. By the by, just what is it you purport to be an expert in? Primitive cultures? Perhaps you should post a sociological study of your trailer park so that you might further impress us with your profound knowledge and infinite wisdom.

TimJ

Uh, books don't argue. And arguing is probably the least effective way to share knowledge. In fact I'd argue arguing barely counts as communication. And, "how can you be sure your knowledge is true if you didn't argue back?" strikes me as some shade of the pathetic "there is no truth" meme 90% of everyone seems to be invested in.

What distinguishes my point of view is that it's not a point of view but a decent understanding of the knowledge that's out there on the subject. My "opinion" is irrelevant. I know what I'm talking about because it's something I've studied. I don't mind telling someone they don't know what they're talking about when they clearly don't. How has that become so insulting? Oh wait- I know the answer...

It's because through some bizarre social alchemy we have largely rejected reason and expertise in favor of opinion and speculation. Opinion has been elevated to the level of knowledge and made sacred, after all, an opinion can never be wrong. What passes for most polite discourse amounts to one person making a statement, another person making a statement, and some time later they agree they both have their own opinions and everyone's entitled to their opinion and one opinion is just as valid as another. It's to the point that knowledge-free, insubstantiated lip-flapping, as long as it "makes sense", is given more respect than fact.

I mean, here you are attacking the very idea that, #1- I could know if I know something or not, and #2- that I could know if someone else doesn't know something or not. It's like living in a giant playground. It's so bizarre and sad... we seem to accept limits to our knowledge for certain mechanical things and grant expertise for some of the same things, like cars. For instance, if someone who knows nothing about cars said to their mechanic "I think my gas is too runny", and the mechanic said, in effect, "the idea that gas can be too runny is silly and illustrates how you don't know what you're talking about", the person may be a little put off but I doubt they would argue until they were blue in the face that the gas is too runny.

We'll mildly accept limits to our knowledge on mechanical things we can easily be proved wrong on, but we will not accept limits to our knowledge on esoteric subjects we know absolutely nothing about. In fact, the less we know more than likely the longer and harder we will argue a subject because our egos are completely unhindered by any limiting factor. With a car engine, when it comes down to it there's a 1,000 pound hunk of machine there and if you don't know how to fix it, you don't know how to fix it. But with the question of relative affluence among hunter/gatherer societies... what's there? Sure, there's knowledge, but when you're unaware of it your ego is free to make up anything- and argue it as if it holds the same weight as fact. So rather than be polite and endure that b.s. I prefer, when it's appropriate, to just point out that the idea your gas is too runny is stupid.

TimJ

You guys always make my point for me better than I do.

acroy

uhhh... of course books argue. Rarely do they actuallys set out the cold hard observable facts. the facts are usually boring. The table of elements came from interpretations of observations of experiments.... the cold hard fact is that the scientists (think) they shot particles at some other particles, got some squiggy lines, and thus the most stable isotope of Neptunium is determined to have mass of 237.0482 units. is that a directly observable fact? no. it is a really good, repeatable theory.

it's the interpretation of the facts which is very much up for debate. Books generally present the interpretations of facts. i.e "based on the work of who and who, it has been determined that thus-and-such society lived in this-and-that way" As well you know, there is quite a lot of debate in "scientific" circles about many interpretations of facts. more than 15,000 scientists signed a petition urging the U.S to regect the '97 Kyoto accord....

2 people see the same facts and come up with 2 (or 3 or 17) interpretations. I am overweight, i drink Diet Coke, Diet Coke makes me fat!

you judge that you posess a "decent understanding of the knowledge that's out there on the subject", so of course your "opinion" is relevent, because in your opinion, you possess a "decent understanding of the knowledge that's out there on the subject".

this, my friend, is blatently contradictory, and tells me your ability to logic is impaired.

Now smile, it will help make you feel better. It is a fact that smiling releases positive endorphines

makeinu

Gee, I guess Socrates and I are just plain fools.

You know, just because some supposed expert wrote a book saying something is true it doesn't make it so. Fact checking is an important and useful skill and one that doesn't lend itself well to noninteractive forms of communication. If, for example, I pointed out the fact that there are studies refuting the notion that cavities are caused by processed foods, your earlier post would be discredited. As a participant in an argument you have an opportunity to produce alternative evidence to demonstrate that your idea is still true. As the author of a book, you simply become a quack spouting erroneous information (and there's always some bit of false information in a substantial work, like a book).

There is truth, but you'll never find it if you take what people tell you at face value.

The problem is you don't know what you're talking about. Everything is interconnected. No matter how much you think you know about a topic, there is always a related piece of information which you don't know about. Knowing 99% of everything there is to know about something doesn't give you the right to say that someone who only knows 1% doesn't know what they're talking about, because if the 1% that they know just happens to be the 1% that you're missing and also just happens to be the crux of the matter then they'll know what the fact of the matter is and you'll know ****. Although you'll vehemently contest that knowing 99% implies you know 100%, you'll be wrong.

Unfortunately, nobody knows everything (not even you). So that's the boat we're in.

Wow, you are so off base here I don't even know where to begin. Let it suffice to say that the bike mechanic who insisted that my 1/4" pitch chain was a 1/2" pitch chain was in fact wrong. But what do I know. He's the bike mechanic, right? Right?

Many times experts are so consumed with their own expertise that they neglect to think. Sadly, this neglect of thought often magically transforms them from experts into jackasses. Sounds like you're one of them.